Just like the Christian prayers ends by mentioning the Holy Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit), traditional Gikuyu prayers were no different.
According to Gikuyu Centre for Cultural Studies (GCCS) that documents the traditional Kikuyu culture, Kikuyu prayers also had what the centre terms as 'Gikuyu Trinity' which had a deep symbolic meaning.
"We should, therefore, end our prayers, Na rĪtwa rīa Awa, na rīa Ma iitū na rīa Mwene Nyaga, Thai, Thathaiya Ngai Thai!,” (In the Name of our Father, our Mother and our God, let the Peace Infinite prevail!)," GCCS documents.
But what really informed this so-called 'Gikuyu Trinity' you ask?
Just like every country in the world has what we term as 'national colours' mostly represented in the respective country's flag, this Gikuyu Trinity was also from the three essential colours that basically represented the Gīkūyū nation and how they related with one another.
Below we focus on the three definitive Gīkūyū traditional colours (White, Ochre and deep Blue) which were mostly embedded on the Gikuyu circumcision shield (Ndome) and what each an every one of them meant according to GCCS.
1. White
The white colour always formed the ground of the shield upon which the Ochre and the deep Blue were laid. White represented the life force, or the white patch on the peak of Mt Kenya or 'Mwene Nyaga', the God of the Gīkūyū.
2. Ochre/Dark Brown
Today, this colour is well represented in the modern traditional Kikuyu dress. Ochre basically represented the beloved soil/earth which in turn represented the Gīkūyū essential feminine, Mūmbi, the attractive force and partner of the masculine, Gīkūyū.
3. Blue
Blue, in a nutshell, represented the Gikuyu man. But why blue?
"If we understand that the man is the inverse to the woman then, of course, the inverted dome of the sky covering her is the man! He fertilizes the woman by raining on her. This solved the enigma of the puzzling blue that was on the Ndome shield side by side with the Ochre," GCCS writes.
To sum it up to the cultural centre notes, "Gīkūyū colours can be summarized as a trinity drawn like the duality of Chinese Yin, and Yang. It is a powerful trinity and the Gīkūyū people seem to have intertwined their philosophy with their colour theory so well."